BLUEMOMENT

Anybody else registered an interest?
They haven't managed to convince me (yet) of the value I get for my £200 entry fee... Which is only partially returnable on cancellation - even if THEY cancel.

(alleged admin costs will be witheld, even though we're already paying the wages of the staff, as members only may apply)

Maybe they just haven't marketed it well, but sailing for a week in company with an RYA yachtmaster and an engineer, whose expenses we've probably funded as well, just doesn't seem a great bang for my dwindling bucks.

I want Scotland to get some freebies to balance those available to our southern members, not to subsidise them yet again.


Don't suppose they'll accept my application now anyway.......

sahona wrote:They haven't managed to convince me (yet) of the value I get for my £200 entry fee...
Maybe they just haven't marketed it well, but sailing for a week in company with an RYA yachtmaster and an engineer, doesn't seem a great bang for my dwindling bucks.

Never heard of it but are you saying they want £200 for you to be on your own boat?

As you say I'm not sure quite what you get out of the deal. Unless the Yachtmaster and engineer are high profile sailing celebs of some kind, or good time girls.

I'm curious, any more details?

Chentlemen, may I refer yous to an earlier post viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6972 which was before the £200 was mooted. Let the abuse of the RYA commence!

I just had a keek at the RYA website and all I could find was http://www.ryascotland.org.uk/events/Cl ... ruise.aspx which names a lot of helpers but apparently only one boat (last para) in 2012!

Jings Bill
Me an Para will come fer £100 an a the booze we can sink

The info is in a zipped office7+.docx Email attachment thing that I don't know how to show you. I had to download a freeviewer to read it.
Essentially you fuel and provision your boat as normal, sail around as normal and pay £200 for a "goody bag" (name, age and nationality undeclared )
To be fair, maybe they are negotiating a low berthing regatta-rate, but that is available to visiting groups anyway, and/or entry to the music festival venues, but they haven't declared any financial advantage for your £200 per boat and two persons ( crew participants extra...) - and the main concern is the non-returnability of the entry fee.
They are also on a data-harvesting expedition. as the entry form is VERY probing.

Apart from the piss taking cost the unknown alcoholic quality of your fellow cruisers would be a big risk.

It would be far better to invest £200 in the future viability of several west coast hostelries with the added advantage of maintaining your own pace.

I think the concept is worth supporting for those skippers and crews who want to enjoy the company of fellow sailors and who perhaps may need something like the cruise to encourage friends or family to extend their sailing beyond local waters. Sounds like a good thing to me. Must admit though, you, Sahona, didn't quite fit my mental picture of the likely skipper who'd be looking for such an opportunity.

Shard wrote:I think the concept is worth supporting for those skippers and crews who want to enjoy the company of fellow sailors and who perhaps may need something like the cruise to encourage friends or family to extend their sailing beyond local waters. Sounds like a good thing to me. Must admit though, you, Sahona, didn't quite fit my mental picture of the likely skipper who'd be looking for such an opportunity.

In general I agree with you, I like a bit of socialising my self, £200 would make me get anti social though.

Shard wrote:I think the concept is worth supporting for those skippers and crews who want to enjoy the company of fellow sailors and who perhaps may need something like the cruise to encourage friends or family to extend their sailing beyond local waters. Sounds like a good thing to me. Must admit though, you, Sahona, didn't quite fit my mental picture of the likely skipper who'd be looking for such an opportunity.

I don't think the issue is the cruise in company itself, it's the fact that a Cruise in Company would seem to typically cost about £0 to organise. So it's hard to see where the £200 per boat comes in. Of course it's possible the £200 includes berths, distillery visits or midget hookers in which case fair enough. If the £200 per boat is for someone to keep a spreadsheet of phone numbers then it seems a bit of a chiz.

.
I imagine the money will largely be going to paying the two Yachtmaster Instuctors mentioned.

Maybe BlueMoment can organise our own Malin Waters cruise. We are thinking of a visit to Derry this year as it is the UK City of Kulcher 2013 and has a new marina. Three days of decent weather to get there from here - Gigha - Rathlin/Ballycastle - Derry. We could meet up at Rathlin/Ballycastle with Clyde boats.

Someone from our club went last year and said the hospitality flowed copiously, so I lifted my head and cocked a lug.
I suppose I'm being irresponsible and nasty if I suggest we act like ARC-sniffers and follow the fleet for free?
Maybe it would be too embarrasing to be the only boat without a 2013 Malin battle-flag up the forestay.
We'll see what the final offer includes I do like the alternative idea of a full length CC however, consider my other lug cocked.

sahona wrote:I do like the alternative idea of a full length CC however, consider my other lug cocked.

I think we should do outr own Classic Malts as well, based on Islay and Islay and Islay.

Derry sounds an interesting jaunt. When you thinking about?

mm5aho wrote:Derry sounds an interesting jaunt. When you thinking about?

We did Londonderry - Derry last year. Sailed to Lough Swilly and got a taxi back over the border. Taxi driver was originally from Dumbarton....

Nice place - great people. Went on the 'official' bus tour. All the place names are somehow sooooo familiar.

Regards

Donald